What sort of atonement can you provide to me?
For you have not yet come to terms with
the monster you have become.
Please don't offer any form of hope or retribution when you don't mean it,
For when I fell in love I overlooked the grey in your eyes;
neglected to search past shallow compliments and hazy sweet scented nothings that you whispered in my ear.
I forgot to ask detailed questions with much depth to provide a relevant background check because ultimately, the facade you projected– the mask that you wore– was glamorous enough for me to just not care.
And I regret ever letting you into my heart and into my body. I regret how willingly I succumbed to your brainwashing, breathing every ounce of your harmful, toxic rhetoric into my healthy lungs until they resembled black tar ******. I will never forgive myself for standing by you until you had destroyed the very foundation I stood upon. I defended you by allowing myself to be your shield.
It took a long time for me to say no.
You had removed that word from my vocabulary.
So when I see you next, I hope to not hate you anymore.
I hope, for your sake at least, that you are a better person because I pity the fool you are to believe that everyone is as stupid as I.